Genocide Studies and Prevention: an International Journal
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Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal Volume 9 Issue 2 Time, Movement, and Space: Genocide Article 2 Studies and Indigenous Peoples 10-2015 Full Issue 9.2 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp Recommended Citation (2015) "Full Issue 9.2," Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 9: Iss. 2: 1-147. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.9.2 Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol9/iss2/2 This Front Matter is brought to you for free and open access by the Open Access Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ISSN 1911-0359 eISSN 1911-9933 Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal Volume 9.2 - 2015 ii ©2015 Genocide Studies and Prevention 9, no. 2 iii Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/ Volume 9.2 - 2015 Melanie O’Brien, Douglas Irvin-Erickson and Christian Gudehus Editors’ Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Tricia Logan and David B. MacDonald Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue ......................................................................2 Articles Kjell Anderson Colonialism and ‘Cold’ Genocide: The Case of West Papua .....................................................9 Jeff Benvenuto What does Genocide Produce? The Semantic Field of Genocide, Cultural Genocide, and Ethnocide in Indigenous Rights Discourse .....................................................................26 Ruth Amir Killing Them Softly: Forcible Transfers of Indigenous Children ..........................................41 Jeremiah J. Garsha ‘Reclamation Road’: A Microhistory of Massacre Memory in Clear Lake, California ..........61 Natalia Ilyniak “To rob the world of a people”: Language Removal as an Instance of Colonial Genocide in the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School ....................................................................76 Andrew Woolford Unsettling Genocide Studies at the Eleventh Conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, July 16-19, 2014, Winnipeg-Canada ..................................................98 Tony Barta Liberating Genocide: An Activist Concept and Historical Understanding ........................103 T. Robert Przeklasa And the Elders and Scholars Wept: A Retrospective on the Symposium: “Killing California Indians: Genocide in the Gold Rush Era,” Held at the University of California - Riverside, 7 November 2014, Organized by the California Center for Native Nations .......................120 ©2015 Genocide Studies and Prevention 9, no. 2 iv Book Reviews Native America and the Question of Genocide by Alex Alvarez, reviewed by Amy Fagin ....................................................................125 Ethnic Cleansing and the Indian: The Crime that Should Haunt America by Gary Clayton Anderson, reviewed by Mark Meuwese .........................................127 Film Reviews Joshua Oppenheimer, The Act of Killing, reviewed by Annie E. Pohlman .......................................................................................131 Joshua Oppenheimer, The Look of Silence, reviewed by Nicole Rafter ...............................................................................................135 Report James P. Finkel Moving Beyond The Crossroads: Strengthening the Atrocity Prevention Board ...............138 ©2015 Genocide Studies and Prevention 9, no. 2 Editors’ Introduction This special issue of GSP emanates from the 2014 conference of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, which focused on Indigenous and colonial genocides. We received so many fascinating, relevant and important submissions for the special issue that we have decided to make two special issues; the second will be published in early 2016. Our guest editors for both issues, Tricia Logan and David MacDonald, have put in many hours of work, and the quality of this issue owes much to their hard work and dedication. Both Tricia and David are Canadians who have a vast array of experience in dealing with issues of acknowledgement and reconciliation with regards to colonial atrocities in Canada. Their expertise and sharp eye for detail have led to two special issues that address pertinent and crucial debates in genocide scholarship. We have endeavoured to cover indigenous genocides beyond North America, although due to the location of the conference, there is more of a focus on North American genocides. However, all of the discussions are relevant to indigenous genocides around the globe, demonstrating similarities between experiences and the specific peculiarities of indigenous colonial genocides. The controversy over the use of the word genocide with regards to colonial atrocities continues today, as we see clearly with the recent release of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s initial report, which Tricia and David discuss in their introduction. The refusal of governments to acknowledge colonial genocide of indigenous peoples creates a barrier to reconciliation and contributes to a culture of denial. Hence why IAGS and GSP thought it so important to hold a conference and publish a special issue on the topic; to contribute to the discussion and ensure that scholarship in genocide studies does not focus on the most prominent and well-known genocides. This special issue has five articles, dealing with indigenous genocides in Papua New Guinea, Canada, the United States and Australia. The articles are complemented with two conference summaries, including one of the IAGS 2014 conference, and Tony Barta’s keynote speech from the IAGS conference. We thought this was an appropriate way for those who attended to remember the conferences, and for those who did not to feel included. Two book reviews analyse two recent publications on indigenous genocides. The issue also includes three film reviews which do not fit within the indigenous genocides theme, but are complementary to one another. Annie Pohlman delivers a historical analysis of Joshua Oppenheimer’s ground-breaking film, The Act of Killing. Nicole Rafter then provides a criminological perspective of Oppenheimer’s follow-up film, The Look of Silence. Both films deal with the aftermath of the 1960s violence in Indonesia. They are shocking in their depiction of perpetrators of mass atrocities, and the lack of concern for the atrocities they committed. A subject that surfaces in the conversation on indigenous genocides is that of genocide not just being about physical destruction, but also cultural destruction. This engages the issue of the definition of genocide. The legal definition is often restricted, but it is hoped that scholarship such as the pieces in this special issue will motivate and assist law makers and judiciary at domestic and international level to acknowledge that cultural destruction is genocide. Finally, the issue concludes with James P. Finkel’s annual report on the U.S. government’s inter-agency Atrocity Prevention Board. Finkel, who recently ended his 35-year career as a member of the senior civil service, is a close advisor to the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The report is intended to provide recommendations for several practical steps that the Board can take to enhance its performance and its public visibility, and to help provide a critical assessment of the state of atrocity prevention within the U.S. government and U.S. foreign policy for an audience of scholars and practitioners. The report looks ahead to GSP’s next issue, 9.3, which focuses on new directions in the field of genocide and atrocity prevention. Melanie O’Brien Douglas Irvin-Erickson Christian Gudehus Melanie O’Brien, Douglas Irvin-Erickson and Christian Gudehus, “Editor’s Introduction” Genocide Studies and Prevention 9, 2 (2015): 1. ©2015 Genocide Studies and Prevention. http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.9.2.1359 Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue Indigenous peoples, sometimes known collectively as the fourth world, have often undergone profound hardship during centuries of western colonialism, and have displayed resilience and renaissance in the face of difficult odds. Currently, forty percent of the world’s countries contain Indigenous nations, who collectively comprise 370 million people or 5% of the world’s population, divided among over 70 states.1 Many Indigenous peoples are united by their marginalization on their traditional lands by dominant colonizing states and societies.2 Many also struggle to overcome unequal conditions in terms of access to safe drinking water, adequate housing, food, clothing, medical care, and education. Continued colonization is also manifest in a high level of settler racism against indigenous peoples, exemplified by sedimented structural inequalities which have been normalized. Indigenous peoples, due to the ongoing legacies of colonialism, are often blamed for problems which have their origins in settler government policies and institutionalized racism.3 While Canada is consistently rated as one of the top countries in the UN Human Development Index, Aboriginal peoples rank alongside citizens of Panama, Belarus, and Malaysia in terms of their social and economic prospects, and these gaps are